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<br />I wanted to check my translation of this sentence.<br /><br />Et gloria incolis provinciae et culpa, sed poeta de natura incolarum tacuit.<br /><br />I first worked it out to:<br /><br /> Both glory of the province's inhabitants and fault,<br /> but the poet was silent about the nature of the inhabitants.<br /><br />Then I tried to refine it a bit so it makes more sense, but in doing so, I moved the second part (sed ...) to the front and placed the beginning (et gloria ...) at the end:<br /><br /> The poet was silent about the nature of the inhabitants,<br /> even the glory and fault of the inhabitants of the province.<br /><br />Do you think this is a good interpretation of the sentence?<br /><br />

Et gloria incolis provinciae et culpa, sed poeta de natura incolarum tacuit.<br /><br /><br />Very strange construction! <br />But I made these reflections. Sed introduces the second part of a sentence. So you would exspect that there is a verb in the first part or that the verb in the first part is understood or that the verb in the first part is the same as in the second part and thus is not repeated. You have three posibilities. <br /><br />In concreto: the verb in the second part, cannot be used in the first part. The meaning would be something no one would understand. There is no explicite expression of a verb in the first part. So we must understood a verb like 'erat' or something, I think. <br /><br />You could think that gloria and culpa are ablatives, but that would be a strange mening too. <br /><br />My opinion is that a verb like 'erat' is understood, but not expressed. <br /><br />I would translate it like this: <br /><br />Et gloria incolis provinciae et culpa, sed poeta de natura incolarum tacuit.<br /><br />[It was both], glory and guilt for the inhabitants of the province, but the poet was silent about the nature of the inhabitants. <br /><br />The words that are understood are between [].<br />I think they mean that it was something dubious for the inhabitants of the province. For some it was glory. For some it was guilt. (It's possible that he is talking about a war or something. A war can be glory for the winners, but also guilt for the victims. It must be something like this.) But the poet didn't say anything about that. <br /><br />Greetz, <br />Moerus.

Moerus wrote:<br />the verb in the second part, cannot be used in the first part. The meaning would be something no one would understand.

<br /><br />Why can't the verb tacuit be applied to the first part? I thought that since there was one verb, it must apply to both parts somehow.<br /><br />I had thought the poet was also silent about the glory and fault of the province's inhabitants. Although for this to work, I also wondered why glory and fault weren't pluralized. I just realized that I incorrectly translated incolis, somehow thinking it was genitive. <br />

<br />My opinion is that a verb like 'erat' is understood, but not expressed.

<br /><br />The thought never crossed my mind that there could be a verb implied. When a verb is implied, is it always the verb "to be"?<br /><br />

<br />[It was both], glory and guilt for the inhabitants of the province, but the poet was silent about the nature of the inhabitants.

<br /><br />That seems feasible if you make assumptions about the context. Unfortunately, it's a stand-alone sentence, so I have no idea what might have been intended.<br /><br />

<<Et gloria incolis provinciae et culpa>><br /><br />Is there any chance that this is dative of possession - i.e. 'to the inhabitants of the provinces were glory and fault' which might translate as 'The inhabitants of the provinces had both fame and responsibility, but the poet ...etc'<br /><br />Cheers<br /><br />

<br />I only think that of translating from Latin to English.<br /><br />When I'm doing the English to Latin exercises, I already know what the meaning is in English, so it's less ambiguous. Then the ball is in the other person's court to figure out my Latin! ;D<br /><br />

;D <br /><br />But doing English to Latin, you have to figure out word order...I made it to the section on word order in Latin for Beginners the other day, but before that, I was guessing...most of the time guessing badly.

<br />And that's why we have so many Latin-to-English exercises. Besides translating, you also get accustomed to seeing how the word order is constructed.<br /><br />That's one thing I love about M&F. The exercises on Page 45 give me a lot of practice -- there are 29 Latin-to-English exercises.<br /><br />The book has drills, preliminary exercises, "real" exercises, and a reading section. I find the reading section helpful too, and they include footnotes for vocabulary words or phrases that haven't yet been covered.<br /><br />

philjgibbs wrote:<<Et gloria incolis provinciae et culpa>><br /><br />Is there any chance that this is dative of possession - i.e. 'to the inhabitants of the provinces were glory and fault' which might translate as 'The inhabitants of the provinces had both fame and responsibility, but the poet ...etc'<br /><br />Cheers<br /><br />

I have just finished Unit Two (2nd trip through it) and I think that the verb is understood ('to be') as illustrated by ellipsis on the bottom of page 43.

This has been one tough unit, and I still don't think I have a strong grasp of everything it introduced yet.